


First comes doubt, then comes faith

by stellarparallax



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Liar Game AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Public Defender! Keith, Shiro's backstory is similar to Akiyama from Liar Game but their roles are switched in this AU, They've literally been pining for YEARS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 14:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20602019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarparallax/pseuds/stellarparallax
Summary: When a man approaches Keith for a favour, he doesn't think much of it. After all, he was a public defender; helping people was part of the lifestyle. But what he doesn't expect is for this favour to lead him right into the lion's den of misdeeds, and an encounter with someone that he never thought he'd see again.--Liar Game AU where Keith and Shiro reunite during the second round after years of being separated.





	First comes doubt, then comes faith

**KEITH**

“Let’s see if I understand you clearly,” Keith said as he pulled his hair back into a ponytail. “Two weeks and two days ago, you came home to a package on your doorstep.”

_ “Please, Keith, I’m begging you. My parents are gone and I need to support my little sister. I can’t afford to go into $1,000,000 debt!” _

Matt nodded.

Keith continued, “Inside the package, there were two items: a card and a phone. The card said that you were invited to participate in the first round of this… Liar Game Tournament.”

_ “What? But that can’t be. Why would someone be so aggressive in the first week?” _

“Yes.”

“You’ve been on a losing streak for the last week and that’s when you contacted a private investigator who led you to me.”

Matt looked away. Then he nodded again.

“Explain to me how the game works.”

Matt sighed. He pulled out the game phone and pressed his thumb on the home button. The phone lit up, revealing a game application. 

“This is my avatar. He’s a business owner that receives 10 proposals every week that he can either accept or reject. If those proposals are from a legitimate business, or in this case from the Liar Game officials, there is a 50-50 chance that the deal will succeed or fall through.”

Keith’s eyes darted from side to side.

“If the proposals are from the con man—my opponent—the chances of me losing the money involved in the deal is 100%.” Matt took a deep breath. “I can also send scam proposals to them and the same rules apply.”

“Hmm.... Wouldn’t it get suspicious if one of the players decided to be trigger happy and kept sending too many scam proposals?”

Matt tapped on a few buttons to bring him to the outgoing screen. “No, you can only propose 10 proposals every week. The player can either choose to let the game sent a proposal or you can send your own in its place.”

“So what’s stopping the player from just sending 10 of their own proposals? If the other player suspected that, wouldn’t they just reject everything?”

Matt raised a finger then got up from the dining room table to go to his room. When he re-emerged, he was holding paper and pens. 

“Each player has been given,” he said as he wrote ‘$1,000,000’. Then he drew four lines branching outward. 

“There are four weeks,” Keith added.

Matt nodded and wrote ‘1 week’ at the other end of the lines. “In each proposal, you can ask for a maximum of $25,000. If you send a scam proposal and your opponent rejects it, you forfeit $12,500 of your own balance.”

“Okay. So, what happened in the first round?”

“Well.” Matt’s face flushed a deep red. “I had this idea that they wouldn’t try anything in the first round, just to get a sense of the game before taking any risks so…”

“You didn’t send any scam proposals and you accepted all of theirs,” Keith interrupted. “How much did you lose?”

“... $250,000.” 

“ _ All _ of them were scams?” Keith tried to hide how impressed he was at the audacity. They must have assumed that Matt would conclude that no one would risk so much at the start at the game and used that against him.

“I thought they would do the logical thing.”

“Logic,” Keith snorted. “You think that people operate on  _ logic _ .”

“If you assess situations logically, you don’t base your decisions on feelings. That way, you get the best possible outcome.”

“Is that how it’s been for you?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Tell me, do you succeed because you’re logical or are you logical because you succeed?”

Matt opened his mouth, but stayed silent.

“So now that you’re losing, does that mean that you’re illogical?”

Matt stiffened up.

“Relax, I’m just teasing. But it was pretty stupid to underestimate the game.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think the game allows you to play as a business owner  _ and _ a conman? It’s because to win, you need to put yourself in the mindset of both. If you’re going to trick a business owner, you also need to consider what assumptions they would have and use it to your advantage,” Keith explained.

Keith watched intently as Matt’s eyes widened at the realisation that he had been way over his head. 

Then Keith asked, “Are you willing to do everything it takes to win this game?”

“Isn’t it hopeless? They’ve already had enough of a headstart that they can ignore all my scam proposals.”

“That’s true. That’s why we need to spook them into continuing to play the game properly.”

“You have a plan?”

“Answer my question first: are you willing to do everything it takes to win this game?”

Matt’s eyes darkened. “Yes.”

“Then yes,” Keith smirked. “I have a plan.”

* * *

* * *

**KEITH**

A week went by after Keith helped Matt deliver a crushing defeat.

The day after the game ended, Matt received an invitation to the next round of the Liar Game Tournament. It said that if he didn’t wish to participate, he had to return half of the $1,000,000 that he was given in the first round. 

Keith almost forgot what it was like not to receive at least ten text messages before he’d even had breakfast. Matt was understandably worried that something bad would come out of continuing to ignore the game officials, but it didn’t change that he was starting to get on Keith’s last nerve. 

Until he didn’t anymore.

Something was amiss and Keith would be remiss if he didn’t rush over to Matt’s apartment to stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life. In his line of business, he’d seen far too many people who thought that they could represent themselves in court. It rarely, if ever, went well. 

Oddly enough, Matt answered when he knocked.

“Keith!” Matt greeted him like an old friend, rather than a ruthless lawyer that he hired a few weeks ago. “Come on in!”

“Why haven’t you texted me in the last few days?”

“Uhm.” Matt’s eyes lowered. “So I have a roommate who just got out of prison.”

Keith raised an eyebrow, “And?”

“And… I told him about what happened and he said he’d go over there to get it sorted out.”

“Matt.” Keith’s voice was filled with worry. “Does he even know what he’s getting himself into?

“I think he’ll be fine.”

“Because you were fine? What if he gets conned into playing the game? What if he gets saddled with millions of dollars in debt?”

“Then he’ll find a way to get out of it. Trust me, this guy’s the real deal.”

His words didn’t convince Keith at all. If anything, it only elevated his anxiety levels. Sure, they managed to trick his last opponent, Govak, into making enough tiny mistakes till it culminated into a big mistake that they used to turn the tables, but Matt knew Govak from college. He knew how to get under his skin. Before the start of the second round, he hadn’t received any information on the other player. Or worse,  _ players _ . 

It wasn’t just that. He was underestimating the game,  _ again _ . 

“Who is this genius anyway?” Keith said.

“Have you heard of Takashi Shirogane?”

That sent Keith running. Matt called his name from behind him, but he didn’t stop. He had to get to the next venue before the game started.

He couldn’t let him get trapped in another system.

* * *

* * *

**SHIRO**

The people in the mansion appeared unassuming. Hell, the interior was unassuming. When he was outside, he thought that surely, there’d be at least one chandelier in the largest room. Though, he probably should not have focused on that, given that there were far sketchier things about the whole… thing. 

Matt explained to him how the game works, but knowing Matt, he probably left out a few important details. Not intentionally, of course. Matt just had a way of not committing anything he didn’t deem important to memory. From what Shiro surmised, however, no detail in this game would be less than vital. He knew that he had to stay alert to find any loopholes that he could use to his advantage.

After all, to allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security was to repeat his mother’s mistake.

He heard from one of the game officials that they were still waiting for someone to decide on whether they were going to join or withdraw.  _ They were probably in the same situation as Matt _ , Shiro thought; spending most of the money that had been given to them in the first round and being unable to return half the money when it was due. Matt had used a sizeable chunk of it to pay off his sister’s student loans and Shiro was willing to bet that most of the people in the room had similar problems with debt. He wondered if they were chosen to participate for that exact reason. 

The game official announced that the final player had arrived. When he entered, he was out of breath. The ends of his hair was sticking to his neck and his face was covered in sweat. He looked like a mess. A mess that Shiro recognised immediately. 

Suddenly, he abandoned all caution and self-control and launched himself at the man. He grabbed his collar as he slammed him against the wall. 

“Keith,” he rasped. “What are you doing here?”

Keith’s eyes widened, but he quickly regained his composure. Then, his eyes narrowed as he said, “Hello again, Shirogane. It’s been a while.”

“This isn’t a game, Keith. You need to leave now.”

Keith’s eyes flashed as he sunk his fingers into Shiro’s wrists. He tightened his grip and said, “Remember what I told you when I first met you?”

Shiro released him and staggered backwards. He had his suspicions before, but all of the alarms were ringing now. Trapping his roommate, making it seem like he had no way of escape leading Shiro to surrender on his behalf, bringing a man from his past—it really was starting to look more pattern than coincidence.

He had to discuss it with Keith. He was the only one there that he could trust. But it wasn’t the time for that.

“Gentlemen,” the official said. “Are we ready to begin?”

* * *

* * *

**SHIRO**

“Why are you working so hard on this?”

The pencil tucked behind Keith’s ear fell off as he looked up from the files that he had in a messy pile on his desk. He tilted his head to the side.

“Why do you care so much?” Shiro asked. “This is just a summer internship for you.”

Frustration was beginning to reach a boil in Shiro as he watched how sincere Keith appeared to be as he sorted Shiro’s case files. It was as if he genuinely thought that if he tried hard enough, put it together neatly enough, it would change the outcome of the trial. He couldn’t understand why Keith seemed to care about him more than his own legal representative.

“Shiro…”

“When you were put on this case, they told you that I was guilty, didn’t they? They told you that they were just going to fight for a lighter sentence and that would be all. So why are you trying so hard?”

It wasn’t fair of him to take his exasperation out on someone so fresh out of college that the stars were still dancing in his eyes. But he said what he said, and he couldn’t take it back because he meant it.

“They thought my mother was guilty too,” Keith muttered under his breath.

Shiro’s eyes widened.

“I decided then that I wasn’t going to let anyone go down without a fair fight, even if that means going against my boss.”

Shiro whispered. “You believe that I’m innocent?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. Listen to me: either we both get out of the system or none of us do. That’s a promise.”

Shiro felt something inside of him swell. Since he’s mother’s death, he’d been so caught up in getting even that he forgot what it was like to trust someone else, to put every bit of hope that he had in them and give them the power to crush it.

His eyes softened.

“And what happens if we do? Are we going to run off into the sunset and get married?”

Keith laughed. “That’s an option. Or we could do this for the rest of our lives.”

“ _ This _ ?”

“Fighting for justice. Saving people. You know, that sort of idealistic bullshit that you probably don’t believe in.”

“Keith,” Shiro said like a prayer. “If it’s you, I’d believe in anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading to the end of the fic! I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it! I would really appreciate it if you left kudos and comments! <3
> 
> Come yell at me [@artparallax](https://twitter.com/artparallax) (twitter)


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